Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) was first utilized during World War II with the introduction of Identify Friend of Foe (IFF) transponders and other devices. Arguably, the first ancestor of modern Near Field Communications (NFC) systems was described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,148 (Cardullo” et al.), which disclosed a passive radio transponder with memory that was powered by an interrogating signal. The first patent associated with the abbreviation “RFID” was U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,288 (Walton). Thus, the basic concepts of RFID and NFC have been disclosed for decades.
Despite this rich history, other than RFID chips and NFC read-only tags for mass transit, passports, hotel keys, and animal identification; RFID and NFC technology have struggled to achieve widespread acceptance with individual consumer applications. Indeed, the world RFID market value is estimated at only $8.89 billion United States Dollars (USD), circa 2014.
The NFC tags referred to are also configured with very small amounts of usable memory (e.g. 48-128 bytes). In such configurations, NFC tags essentially provide only the same static data as barcodes; however, the economies of printed barcodes more than offset any gains to be had by RFID or NFC tags.
Near Field Communication (NFC) was introduced as a new standard beginning in 2003 for short-range radio frequency communication. One portion of the standard referred to as “reader/writer mode” enables communication between powered devices such as mobile phones and non-powered or passive, electronic integrated circuits referred to in the art as “tags.” The protocol defined in NFC to enable standardized data exchange in reader/writer mode is referred to as the NFC Data Exchange Format, or NDEF.
All top selling mobile phones include NFC capabilities, which enables the phones to read NFC tags. Those same mobile phones typically include a camera and associated software that enables the scanning and reading of barcodes. As previously stated, simply supporting barcode capabilities with more expensive NFC tags does not make economic sense for most businesses today.
What is needed are NFC tags with more usable memory that are combined with a system for protecting the data stored in that memory where the NFC tag does not require more expensive processing capabilities to protect the data. Equally important is the need to preserve interoperability between these NFC tags and the simple read or read-only operations supported by NFC devices, including mobile phones.
Thus, there is a need to modernize RFID or NFC tags to expand capabilities beyond what is readily possible with printed barcodes. Ideally, these expanded capabilities would enable individual chip activation, larger amounts of data and as well as access to confidential information, none of which would be possible with printed barcodes. Additionally, these expanded capabilities could optionally include dynamic data that could be only accessed after a consumer registered or paid a fee.